Sister of woman whose remains were found in Colorado issues plea on behalf of missing hiker

The sister of Suzanne Morphew, the missing woman whose body was found in Colorado, has pleaded for the public to pay attention to a woman whose disappearance led to the discovery of her sister’s remains.

“Today I choose to turn my thoughts and heart to the family of Edna Quintana whose search was the catalyst for my miracle; Suzanna being found,” Melinda Moorman Balzer said in a statement.

Agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation found human remains on 22 September while searching for missing Edna Quintana, 55, who disappeared in May.

Authorities positively identified the remains as those of Suzanne Morphew. The 49-year-old had gone missing on Mother’s Day 2020 after she reportedly set off on a bike ride in southern Colorado.

Ms Balzer said that she felt “a quiet relief and peace” knowing that her sister had been found.

“Although there were only her skeletal remains left in the dry prairie grass of Saguache county I am grateful for the closure for which I have prayed since May of 2020,” Ms Balzer wrote in a statement issued to reporters. “Only those who have walked this journey of loss can truly understand the ambiguous loss of this tragedy.”

Ms Balzer urged people to turn their attention to Ms Quintana, who police were originally looking for when they found the remains of the missing mother of two.

“Now it is Edna who needs your thoughts and prayers. Keep her alive in the social media world,” she said.

After three years of limbo, Ms Balzer notes that she understands what Ms Quintana’s family is going through.

“They now wait in the anguish of uncertainty for the discovery of their beloved Edna,” she said.

Ms Quintana, a mother of five, has been missing for exactly five months. Her family reported her missing after she went hiking with a boyfriend on 3 May and didn’t return.

“Me and my mom and my brother were worried that she hadn’t come over because she was coming over every day if not every other day,” her sister Marilyn Quintana told CBS News.

Her cousin also told KRDO that Ms Quintana was  “not involved with a very good group” when she went missing back in May.

While the couple were apparently up in the mountains, Ms Quintana reportedly decided to go back down. When her boyfriend came down back to the car, she was nowhere to be seen.

The boyfriend, who remains unidentified, is not currently publicly listed as a suspect in this case.

When asked about the two families who have found out about their missing loved ones while looking for Ms Quintana – the remains of another missing person, James Montoya, had been found several months earlier while searching for Ms Quintana – her sister said she feels for the families but wishes she had information of their own.

“We are going through the same thing but at least they have closure,” she said.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has not confirmed that it was Ms Quintana that they were looking for when they found Morphew’s remains.

However, her husband Barry Morphew, who had been investigated as a suspect in his wife’s disappearance, issued a statement through his attorney that said: “It was the Saguache County Officials that fortunately stumbled onto Suzanne’s remains last week while looking for another missing woman, Edna Quintana.” Mr Morphew was previously charged with her murder in May 2021, but prosecutors later dropped the charges against him one day before his trial was due to start.

And now Edna’s sister Marilyn is stuck desperately hoping for more information about her sister’s disappearance. “It’s frustrating because we want her to be found, we just want to know what happened,” she said.